Netanyahu’s Gift to Hamas

A look at who has really enabled and empowered Hamas

The latest claim from Prime Minister Netanyahu is that recognition of a Palestinian state later this month by France, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Belgium is a gift to Hamas. Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and other members of the government are arguing that Israel must respond by annexing significant pieces of the West Bank. And unsurprisingly, officials in the Trump Administration, including Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee, are buying into this frame.

That Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir make this case is no surprise. What is surprising is how many otherwise reasonable people are echoing these points. The truth is the opposite: recognition is meant as a direct counter to Hamas. And if anyone has consistently empowered Hamas over the past 15 years, it is Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies.

Recognition as a Counter to Hamas

The July 28-30 New York conference was designed to showcase Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas flanked by French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and other top Arab and European leaders. The message: global support for Palestinian statehood and a clear rejection of Hamas.

The “New York Declaration,” the basis for the upcoming meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, condemned Hamas for October 7, called on the group to disarm and relinquish power, and laid out a vision for Gaza’s future: Arab states taking responsibility for security, governance, and reconstruction alongside Palestinians and the international community. And it traces a pathway to an eventual 23-state solution with Israel fully integrated into the Middle East and the creation of a new Palestinian state. But as the Arab States – especially Saudi Arabia – have said all along, the price for their involvement is a clear commitment to a Palestinian state, which is why Palestinian statehood is a part of this.

Having Abbas stand before the world with Arab and European leaders to outline a post-Hamas vision is no “gift to Hamas.” It is designed to empower the only realistic alternative. And it isn’t cost-free for Abbas. A number of the states have made clear that additional steps beyond initial recognition are conditioned on the Palestinian Authority taking concrete steps to reform.

Yet the Trump administration has adopted Netanyahu’s framing. Instead of allowing Abbas to seize this moment, it is violating the UN Headquarters Agreement, which governs how the US provides access to foreign diplomats at the United Nations, by denying visas to Abbas and other Palestinian officials. For some perspective, Iran, Russia, and China will have greater access to the UN General Assembly meetings later this month than the Palestinian Authority.

Critics also dismiss recognition as merely a performative step. Of course, the urgent priority is ending the war in Gaza, freeing hostages, and flooding the Strip with aid. That will save lives now.

Recognition is largely symbolic, but it provides something that is currently sorely lacking, especially for Palestinians – hope. In 2020, when Israel was last threatening to annex the West Bank, I wrote a piece that argued that the only proper response to annexation was American recognition of a Palestinian state to help provide that hope and keep the American commitment to this principle. I’ve written many pieces on many topics over the years, but nothing got the kind of positive response from Palestinian colleagues and friends as that article. Statehood, even symbolic, is deeply meaningful to Palestinians. And so it’s still worth doing – especially right now when hope is at such a deficit.

Netanyahu: The Real Patron of Hamas

Another critique of recognition has been that the Palestinian Authority is weak and dysfunctional, and therefore, only once they get their act together do they deserve statehood. The Israeli government argues that at this point, it’s better to just start over and look for a non-Hamas, non-PA alternative.

The reality is that there are big problems in the PA, and many are of their own or Abbas’s doing. The lack of democracy and representation, corruption, and poor governance are genuine problems. The PA needs to do better.

But no alternative to Hamas could ever have succeeded, given the policies that Netanyahu pursued throughout his career as Prime Minister. For 15 years, Netanyahu has conducted a strategy of weakening the Palestinian Authority (PA) while tacitly propping up Hamas. As the New York Times reported:

As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

Examples of this strategy abound. In 2011, Netanyahu traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to Hamas in exchange for Gilad Shalit. When I was part of the team negotiating between Israelis and Palestinians in 2013-14, Palestinian officials consistently emphasized to us how much that deal had given Hamas a major boost and helped shift Palestinian public opinion in support of armed resistance as the most effective tool to achieve changes in Israeli behavior.

Even more egregious was Netanyahu’s decision in 2018, while Trump was President, to cut a deal allowing millions of dollars in cash to be flown into Ben Gurion airport from Doha every month and then driven across Israel into Gaza to go to Hamas. The response to Hamas armed resistance was to pay them off and do it with a mechanism that provided absolutely no oversight – straight cash that could be used for anything, including weapons.

In contrast, the Palestinian Authority’s security forces were working with Israel and the United States to counter Hamas in the West Bank. The PA also continued to emphasize nonviolence as the pathway to statehood. And yet, as opposed to straight cash, the PA was in for very different treatment. Israel and the United States Congress, with Trump’s support in 2018, passed various laws to cut aid to the PA and withhold Palestinian tax revenues, which Israel collected on the PA’s behalf. The justification for this legislation was the prisoner payment system, which provided extra funds to families of prisoners who committed violent acts against Israelis, an admittedly deeply problematic practice, but not nearly as problematic as the Hamas practice of regularly launching rockets and missiles into Israel at that time. One got cash. The other got major financial cuts.

And if there were any doubts about this double standard, this year the PA reformed its system to no longer provide those extra payments to prisoners or their families. I worked on this initiative in the Biden Administration, which included engaging with Israeli technical experts who saw this as a meaningful step forward. Yet how does the Israeli Foreign Minister respond to this step? He lies, calls it a shell game, and continues to withhold Palestinian Authority money.

Post October 7, efforts to undermine the Palestinian Authority have become even more blatant. Smotrich started by withholding nearly half of all Palestinian tax revenues – customs revenues earned by the PA that Israel collects on its behalf based on an agreement during the Oslo Accords. Smotrich’s argument is that these funds were helping Hamas since the money was earmarked for Gaza. In reality, the PA was paying salaries in Gaza to civil servants who were explicitly not affiliated with Hamas and provided services in non-political ministries such as water and health. I’m sure the system wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly preferable to suitcases of cash from Qatar. If you were looking to weaken Hamas and build alternatives to it in Gaza, this was not the way to do it. And Smotrich continues to regularly hold or delay revenue transfers, which make up a huge portion of the Palestinian budget. Then he and his allies turn around and say that the PA is feckless and ineffective. Show me a government that can function when someone regularly and unpredictably withholds large portions of its revenue.

And now, the response of the Israeli government to the recognition of a Palestinian state is to potentially pursue annexation. Recognition provides a pathway to a state and hope, but it does not make permanent changes on the ground. Annexation is not a proportionate or reasonable response to recognition. It is just an excuse by the likes of Smotrich and Netanyahu to do what they wanted to do all along, and a culmination of a years-long strategy that has brought them to this point.

What Can Supporters of Israel and Opponents of Netanyahu Do?

Faced with this current moment, what is the proper response for members of Congress, and what should the response be of the U.S. government if it weren’t controlled by the current crew:

1. Make it 100% clear that annexation is a red line. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already done that, making clear that normalization would be off the table and that the UAE might even withdraw from the Abraham Accords. Democrats in Congress should follow suit. It would be nice if Trump would, but I’m not holding my breath.

2. Support Palestinian statehood. At this moment of desperation, infusing hope is vital. It won’t change things on the ground immediately. It’s no substitute for ending the war in Gaza. But it is still worthwhile.

3. Support real Palestinian state-building. This requires holding the PA accountable for continuing reforms. This also means supporting, eventually, a new Israeli government that is actually willing to empower the PA and weaken Hamas. And it requires an international community, including the United States, that is willing to recommit to Palestinian state-building.

4. Don’t fall for the ridiculous talking point that statehood is a gift to Hamas. For 15 years, Bibi Netanyahu and his allies pursued a strategy of dividing Palestinians, weakening the PA, and paying off Hamas. Donald Trump, during both his first term and since coming back to office, has only enabled this approach. And that is the greatest gift anyone has ever given Hamas.

   Ilan Goldenberg is a Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer at J Street and served as a Senior Advisor on the Middle East to Vice President Kamala Harris. Opinions are his own.